Right to Opine

Not content with the fact that Muslims do indeed enjoy religious freedom in America, expatriate Michael Goldfarb lectures us for not being tolerant of Islam. So much is wrong with this editorial. Let’s begin at the top.

The plan to build Park 51, a Muslim community centre a few blocks north of Ground Zero in New York City, has re-kindled resentment smoldering since 9/11 against the Muslim community in a significant portion of American society.

Consider that originally the building was to be called the “Cordoba House.” Anyone who knows anything about Muslim history knows the name was chosen deliberately. If you’re unaware of its significance, educate yourself. From the beginning, this project was an intentional poke in America’s eye.

Goldfarb notes that a New York Times poll showed that while 62% of New Yorkers believed backers of the center had the right to build it near Ground Zero, 67% said it should not be.

The question raised by the poll is, people have religious freedom but where did the toleration go?

The underlying problem here is that Goldfarb, like many on the left, confuses the freedom or legal right to perform an act with the wisdom or moral correctness of doing so. You may have the legal right to be an idiot, but I do you no great favor by tolerating your idiocy.

Picture a “Christian” group blowing up the Kingdom Centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, slaughtering thousands of innocent Saudis. Can you even imagine the outrage that would follow if any other group of Christians—even a legitimate and widely-accepted group—were to propose building a Christian community center on or near the site? That outrage would be justified…and so is ours. The issue is not one of “(legal) right to” but of “ought to.”

(Oh, wait. I forgot. Even having a Bible in your possession in Saudi Arabia is a crime punishable by imprisonment. Converting to Christianity—from, er, Islam—is a capital offense. Ah, yes…we certainly are the intolerant ones.‚

Regarding religious freedom and tolerance, Goldfarb then ponders,

Where do those values of religious tolerance come from? Are they uniquely American?

What follows is a couple paragraphs on John Locke followed by a brief explanation of how France has dealt with the issue. I’m not entirely sure why Goldfarb bothers with these, as they both point out exactly how good minority religions have it in America. Locke, taken in context, never suggested that society should tolerate all religions in the way Goldfarb and the modern left would have it—a full and approving embrace. I’m OK. You’re OK. Kumbayah, etc. (Read it. I’m not sure Goldfarb did. The bulk of the essay deals with how Christians of various sects treat each other, an issue deserving as much attention now as when he wrote, but irrelevant to the topic at hand.) Locke argued that the government itself should not play favorites and should view adherents of all religions equally—something America has done at least as well as any other nation on the planet.

And France? They’ve recently banned the full Muslim veil in public. To my knowledge (and a lengthy Google search) no serious American political leader has suggested we do the same. Yes, there have been a few legal cases involving Islam, e.g., requiring Muslim women to unveil in order to have drivers license photographs taken, but there is no great push in the U.S. to curtail Muslims’ religious freedom.

In the furor over Park 51, the more thinking members of the anti-mosque brigade have invoked French reasoning without using the word France, reminding the project’s prime mover, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, that tolerated minorities have reciprocal responsibilities not to tread to [sic] heavily on the feelings of the majority.

Where equality fits into their reasoning is not clear.

That is because the issue is not one of equality. It is completely and solely about the morality or “rightness” of the project.

Curiously Britain, which had no 18th Century revolution and which still bans a Catholic from taking the throne, has had in these times of tensions between Muslims and their fellow citizens, fewer problems.

Mr. Goldfarb must read an entirely different web site than the BBC (for which he writes) I visit daily. Browse their site and determine for yourself whether his assessment of the situation in England is warranted.

Disappointingly, Goldfarb then descends into the all-too-common ploy of simply denigrating America.

…America is on the verge of exploding with intolerance towards Muslims…

…most Americans…don’t know or think much about the world outside the US.

And so on. Ignorant, navel-gazing, intolerant, bigoted Americans. Yada, yada, yada.

The truth is, religious freedom as it is fiercely defended in America is uniquely American. There is no other country which so amicably plays host to the bewildering array of religions as is found here. It’s one of the many distinctive characteristics which make this the number one destination of immigrants from all over the world and, as Michael Medved is fond of saying, “The greatest nation on God’s green earth.”

Elementary schools are limiting the activities boys can use to productively channel their innate aggression and competitive drives, for example eliminating such useful games as dodgeball. Youth sports associations hand out trophies to every kid for the sheer act of breathing and their parents’ ability to pony up the $100 registration fee instead of reserving accolades for those who actually accomplish something on the field of play. Schools hand out awards for good behavior and “citizenship” (i.e., being nice to classmates) instead of mandating them and rewarding academic performace. After all, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s self-esteem by leaving them out as we hold up exemplary achievement as a mark to be emulated. Now we’re being told that modern superheroes are bad role models.

“There is a big difference in the movie superhero of today and the comic book superhero of yesterday,” said Professor Lamb.

“Today’s superhero is too much like an action hero who participates in non-stop violence; he’s aggressive, sarcastic and rarely speaks to the virtue of doing good for humanity.

“When not in superhero costume, these men exploit women, flaunt bling and convey their manhood with high-powered guns.”

Now I’m not sure what movies and TV shows she’s watching, but today the only “superheroes” that wear costumes are either parodies or remakes of classic comic book mainstays. We just don’t do the whole tights-and-capes thing anymore. Further, I’m a big fan of action movies and TV shows—even the cheesiest—and I guess we’re simply seeing completely different images. Virtually every successful action hero of late follows the same model that has sold well on screen for nearly 100 years: chivalrous, confident but modest (except when it’s necessary to fling a good one-liner at the bad guys), and motivated to fight for the helpless and powerless.

In a second presentation, Dr Carlos Santos, from Arizona State University, examined 426 middle school boys’ ability to resist being emotionally stoic, autonomous and physically tough – stereotyped images of masculinity.

When, exactly, did these qualities become viewed as harmful to boys’ development? Our nation was made possible by the stoicism, autonomy, and physical toughness of generations of men (yes, and women) who lived hard, often brutally short, lives in an effort to tame a wild and dangerous continent. While most of the specific dangers they faced are gone, they have been replaced by others which can only be met by men of equal character.

Unfortunately, academics would have us believe there are no significant differences between the genders, and consequently have us raise the next generation of boys to be women. Such nonsense can only be perpetuated to the detriment of society.

In a hit piece, William Grigg trashes the entire police profession for the misdeeds of a few, concluding:

it’s difficult to see how things would be noticeably worse if we simply did away with it outright.

Let’s look at each incident he cites individually.

In the first case, the officer’s punch was arguably excessive, but…what he did was legal; what the girl did was not. She was interfering with a lawful (if stupid) arrest. Should he have handled it better? No question. But you can’t just shove a cop because you don’t like the fact that he’s enforcing a law you and your friend have just broken, no matter how silly you think the law (jaywalking in this case) may be. (What this officer really needs is a complete refresher in restraint techniques. If that girl had been more savvy she’d have taken him out. His performance was truly pitiful.) Both the officer and the girls acted stupidly.

In the second case, Wright should have pulled over immediately and explained the situation. It’s very likely Daves would have assisted by loading Wright’s wife into his squad car and getting her to the hospital even more quickly than Wright could. What Wright did was illegal and dangerous. He’s lucky Daves didn’t get more squad cars involved. A blockaded street or spike strips would have slowed him down a lot more—and critically endangered his wife—and would have been completely justified. Once at the hospital did Daves act stupidly? Yes. He obviously should have gotten the woman into the ER and sorted out the details later.

Third case…completely indefensible, really. The head EMT even asked the officer to escort them to the hospital first, then take whatever actions he thought necessary. What was he going to do? Evade a police cruiser in an ambulance? The officer shouldn’t just be canned but criminally prosecuted if at all possible. The only question I have is why the ambulance wasn’t running its lights and siren if it was a critical transport. It wouldn’t even have been an issue then.

In addition to a weak analysis of the incidents, Grigg’s article is, unfortunately, also sprinkled with outright fallacies. For example, the notion that police are no different than other citizens—they’re just paid to do what all good citizens should do—doesn’t hold up in any society on the planet. When I’m allowed to carry a handgun in courtrooms, federal buildings, public schools,…I’ll begin to buy that argument. And to quote a (19th century) Brit regarding police authority? Please. The recent shooting spree in the UK could have been stopped by no less than three police officers…if they had been armed. Instead, they were no better than eye witnesses, helpless to stop the killings. If you read the BBC web site, you’ll find examples of UK police futility and uselessness every week. The truth is that our police are, and must be, allowed to do things everyday civilians can’t because they are asked to do things we don’t.

It’s obvious Grigg isn’t a big fan of the police, but cherry-picking a few examples of “Cops Gone Wild” isn’t exactly fair. Even a hundred such examples would not be representative of the thousands of officers who do take their job—with the accompanying ethical and moral imperatives—very seriously. The unlawful or excessive use of force by police should not be tolerated at all, but smearing the entire profession with the abuses of a few, as his conclusion does, is patently dishonest.

From the only-in-California file, the state’s legislature has passed a law banning violent felons from owning body armor. Not surprisingly, the Gubernator signed it yesterday:

“Violent felons wearing body armor pose a dangerous threat to our communities and especially to our men and women in law enforcement,” Schwarzenegger said.

You know, Arnie, the real problem ain’t the body armor…it’s the violent felons. The law was apparently inspired by the infamous North Hollywood bank robbery of 1997.

In 1997, two bank robbers wearing body armor exchanged hundreds of rounds of gunfire with LAPD officers in a takeover robbery at a Bank of America in North Hollywood. Some of the bullets fired by police were deflected by the body armor worn by the robbers. The battle left 11 officers and seven civilians wounded. The two robbers were eventually killed by police during the shoot-out.

Let’s see here. Robbing a bank is already illegal. Robbing a bank with guns is, um, armed robbery, which is double-illegal. Now robbing a bank with guns and body armor will be triple-illegal. So the nutjobs who run CA believe that criminals who are willing to commit an armed felony are going to hear about this law and think, “Yeah, I’m all for using my rifle to rob a bank, but, gosh! I can’t wear body armor, ’cause it’s illegal. Guess I’ll skip the body armor today.”

This is what happens when you hand over your legislature to the far left—a bankrupt state that’s drowning in red ink, unemployment, and punitive taxes (all three of which are very closely related) wherein law-abiding citizens find it almost impossible to arm themselves for protection but have representatives whose idea of keeping them safe is passing yet another law that criminals are going to ignore.

Armed thug invades home. Armed 80-year-old homeowner shoots and kills said thug. The perp probably thought he’d have an easier time of it, not just because of the occupants’ ages, but because…this happened in Chicago, where the homeowner wasn’t supposed to possess the handgun that saved his and his wife’s lives.

No charges have been filed against the homeowner, but Chicago currently has a statute outlawing the possession of handguns. Its legality is currently being decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

A high-profile Chicago attorney has already stepped forward offering to represent the man pro bono if he faces charges for possessing a weapon.

“Self-defense isn’t just a right, it’s a duty,” said attorney Joel Brodsky. “If this man is prosecuted for saving his own life it’s not just a travesty, it’s justice turned inside out.”

Chicago’s Mayor Daley—and the rest of his gun-grabbing ilk—would rather have two innocent, elderly victims dead than allow them the ability to defend themselves in their own home.

The UK must be so proud of its ban on private ownership of handguns. How is an 89-year-old woman supposed to defend herself from an attack by a 28-year-old home invader? She can’t. She simply gets raped.

Repeat the leftist mantra: “Handguns are bad. They kill people.” Yeah, whatever. Just be honest about it. You hoplophobes would rather have society suffer atrocities than allow people to protect themselves from animals like this.

A woman stabbed four people at a Target store in LA before an off-duty sheriff’s deputy stopped her. I, for one, am sick and tired of reading stories about people being stabbed by knives. It’s high time we banned private ownership of knives. All knives. They kill people.

The stabbing set off a stampede among customers, authorities said.

Well, duh. California has made it impossible for its residents to legally carry virtually any kind of weapon for self-defense. What do you expect? Of course they’re going to run in panic. Here in AZ, there’d have been at least five people within the next two aisles who’d have stopped her with their concealed handguns before that deputy even showed up.

…with liberty and justice for all.

So ends the American Pledge of Allegiance. The concept of justice is deeply ingrained within the American mindset. We have always been, or aspired to be, a nation of just and fair law. Our Constitution guarantees equal treatment under the law and we strive, though imperfectly at times, to live up to that ideal. So important is this principle that it is enshrined in the form of Lady Justice—blind to the individual—at countless courthouses throughout the nation, including the very Supreme Court itself.

We are also, however, a deeply religious people. While the principle of justice can certainly be found in our Judaeo-Christian heritage and philosophy, there are other important ideals to be found therein as well. One in particular is at odds with justice: compassion. Christians in particular often struggle with this apparent dichotomy. Christ embodied compassion—feeding the hungry, healing the sick, forgiving sins. His was an example we must emulate. Too often forgotten, or simply ignored, is the fact that He also personally meted out punishment—most famously when He violently drove swindlers out of the temple. How can we then, as a society, reconcile compassion and justice?

This debate rages fiercely today in the arena of illegal immigration. Many argue that the majority of illegal immigrants are simply desparately poor people who see no hope in their homelands and are attracted to America by the prospect of a better life—and are willing to work hard for it. Personally, I believe this to be true. Despite its flaws, America is still the greatest land of opportunity on the planet—a refuge from tyranny, persecution, poverty, and hopelessness. The argument concludes that, because of their plight, we should show compassion and allow them to stay. This, unfortunately, is a fallacious understanding of compassion.

Consider the bigger picture—the larger consequences of such “compassion.” In this instance, to show compassion—as it is depicted—is to necessarily introduce injustice and incompassion. The massive influx of illegal immigrants across our borders places an increasing and unfair burden on taxpayers—our law-abiding residents—in the form of social services, medical care, and educational expenses. At some point this burden becomes too great, and we see its effects most clearly in overloaded school systems and the growing number of county and municipal hospitals which are closing emergency rooms or declaring bankruptcy. More importantly, allowing illegals to stay creates injustice toward two very important groups: those who have immigrated legally, and those who are waiting—in increasingly long lines—their turn to do so. Why should illegal immigrants be granted the same, or even similar, priviliges as those who follow the law? This is inherently both unjust and incompassionate toward the latter.

Compassion certainly has a valuable place in our society, but it must not come at the expense of justice—of fairness. Our hearts cannot be blind to the individual, but the law must be or it has no meaning. Compassion should justly be shown to the law-abiding rather than the law-breaking.

Two Democratic Representatives from Chicago have asked Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to send in the Illinois National Guard to help fight violent crime in the city. Yep. That handgun ban is working really well, ain’t it?

Disarm the populace then send in the troops. The left’s recipe for “freedom.”

A friend recently posed an interesting question. What would Jesus be considered most, by His life and teachings: a Capitalist or a Socialist? After pondering the issue a bit, I don’t think He’d have fallen into either camp entirely.

Capitalism is driven strictly by the profit motive. Christ spoke rather often about the problems brought about by the love of money. Not wealth itself—God consistently blessed people throughout the Bible with wealth—but the worship of it. Money cannot be our ultimate goal.

Socialism is driven by government control of economic behavior. Altruism becomes involuntary, as the productive are forced to help their neighbors through taxation. Jesus made it clear that God isn’t interested in enforced obedience, e.g., with His frequent criticism of the legalistic Pharisees. God is after the heart.

So neither system aligns well with Jesus’ teaching. More likely He would want us to embrace the best of each and reject the worst. Let’s briefly examine the good and bad in each system.

Capitalism: Consider the parable of the wicked servant. Given a sum of money, he does nothing with it for fear of losing it, and is condemned, while the servants who increase their money are praised. God wants us to make the most of our talents. That would include, for those with the ability, creation of wealth provided said wealth is not the end—as in capitalism—but is used for good purposes.

Socialism: The desire to help those in need is not only admirable but requisite per Jesus’ teaching. Parables such as the good Samaritan and the sheep and goats speak directly to the subject. Yet virtually every time Christ came in contact with the Pharisees, who were caught up in strict rule-following, He denounced them because though their actions may have appeared right, their motives were wrong. They exerted severe control over their fellow Jews through an intricate system of laws. Socialism regulates “generous” behavior through force of law, but Christ came to free us from the burden of law.

Embrace the good in each system; reject the bad. Be a productive member of society including, where possible, generating wealth. But don’t let wealth become your god. Use what you have—be it time, talents, or money—to help those around you who are less fortunate. Bless others with whatever it is with which God has blessed you, and do it with love and a spirit of generosity rather than out of obligation.